He was upset earlier this season when he felt he was lied to regarding his contract status after Joey Votto signed a 10-year extension.

"To this day, I'm still hurt. Well, I don't wanna say hurt," Phillips said. "I'll say scarred. I'm still scarred. It just sucks that it happened. For [Castellini] to sign somebody for $200 million, there must be a new vegetable or fruit coming out that we don't know about. For him to do something like that and tell me they didn't have any more money, that's a lie. But what can I do? I just feel like it was a slap in my face."